South Georgia Medical Center Program

Program Identity & Fit

SGMC Health's Family Medicine Residency is a new, community hospital-based program in rural South Georgia explicitly organized around producing physicians who will stay and practice locally, addressing the region's rural healthcare workforce shortage. Training occurs at a Level III Trauma Center regional referral hospital with a broad-spectrum curriculum (inpatient medicine, OB, pediatrics, EM, behavioral health, sports medicine, geriatrics) and a dedicated simulation lab for procedural skills, but no fellowship pipeline or research infrastructure beyond a PGY-3 quality-improvement/scholarly activity block. Faculty are largely DOs and community-trained family physicians with interests in lifestyle, integrative, and women's health medicine, and the program partners with Mercer University for academic resources rather than functioning as a university-based research enterprise. The program values residents drawn to full-scope rural primary care, community continuity, and long-term local roots over subspecialization or academic career tracks.